The benchmark for how not to incorporate computer graphics and special effects into your script has arrived in the form of Van Helsing, a loud and senseless revamp of the Universal horror monsters of the 1930s. In one fell swoop, Stephen Sommers, who revitalized The Mummy in 1999, takes on Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman and, believe it or not, Mr. Hyde as well.
Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman), a leather clad, one-man army, is dispatched by The Order, a clandestine sect of the Vatican that is supposedly the last line of defense against evil in the world. According to The Order, the type of evil they deal with isn’t even known by most human beings. Van Helsing’s job is to either capture or kill the monsters of the world.
As the film begins, we see Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) assume control of Frankenstein’s Monster (Shuler Hensley) shortly before the monster is lost in a windmill fire ala the movies of old. (And, of course, we know he’ll be back later.) Immediately, we’re transported ahead one year to find that Van Helsing has been sent to Transylvania to stop Dracula before he wipes out the last remaining family of Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), who have been attempting to destroy him for nine generations.
As soon as Van Helsing and his assistant, a friar named Carl (David Wenham), arrive, they are attacked by Dracula’s brides. Later, after Anna and Van Helsing decide they’re on the same team, we learn that Dracula also employs the Wolf Man as a henchman. Then we learn that Dr. Frankenstein’s life-giving experiments hold the key to Dracula and his brides giving birth to thousands of little baby vampires. Shortly after that, I gave up. The plot began to curl back on itself to the point where I simply didn’t care anymore. I’d been bludgeoned to death by ridiculously over-the-top CGI images and impossibly stupid dialogue. I was numb. For the first time ever, a summer blockbuster actually bored me with too much action.
The pacing of the film is all wrong. It opens with a nice black-and-white homage to the original 1930s films but, almost as soon as the film reverts to color, it loses any sense of direction that it may have possessed in an original draft. (And, even then, I’m being optimistic.) Van Helsing is one meaningless action sequence after another that leaves a viewer completely uninvolved. How many times can a character fall hundreds of feet only to be saved by a well-placed rope at the last second? It might work in Spider-Man but, even in that film, it’s not over-done. In Van Helsing, at least four separate individuals fall from impossibly high places to suddenly swing to a safe landing (or at least to a hard, but ultimately painless, one).
The only truly interesting things about Van Helsing are the creative touches given to the mostly computer-generated sets or small details, like the pulsing, luminescent heart of Frankenstein’s Monster. It’s just a pity that more attention wasn’t paid to the one thing that really needed it: the script. One can only pray that poor word-of-mouth kills this movie off as soon as possible or we’ll be faced with a Van Helsing II in two years.
1.0 out of 5.0 stars
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